Utopia vs. Dystopia

What is a utopia?

A utopia is classified as an imagined place or state of things where everything is perfect.

What is a dystopia?

An imagined place in which everything is unpleasant or bad, sometimes an environmentally degraded one.

We think it is quite debatable about whether the utopia is applied to the garden city or the city. From the description of the garden city we would imagine it to be tranquil, beautiful and overall a utopian city. The city itself is a ruin, implying that this would be dystopia. However, the way the character Halloway feels about the city suggests he feels the metropolis is more utopia. We think this shows that a place cannot be classified as a utopia simply by the way it looks to everyone. We think that every individual would have a different version of their own utopia. We also discovered the fact that both of the cities had both utopian and dystopian qualities. The garden city may have appeared utopian by the description of the flowers, canals and the sophisticated “green” technology, yet the social conditions that were forced on the inhabitants of the garden city (vegetarianism, young people of different sexes living together in dormitories until married) makes us begin to question if this place really is utopia. The inhabitants freedom and free will is restricted. The city, whilst a ruin, has the freedom that the Garden City doesn’t offer. It has the ability to be who you want, and do what you want. We have agreed that in the story, The Ultimate City, there is no distinct Utopia or Dystopia